The Lords of Time

by Eva García Sáenz

  I put an X in my notebook and stayed silent. We had reached the next stage: self-justification. This was the most unpleasant part of my job. I hated listening to the despicable excuses every felon created when faced with admitting their guilt. Every rapist, murderer, fraudster, thief, and abuser walked into that room under a kind of moral anesthesia, something I found increasingly hard to tolerate.

  “Let’s move on to the two sisters,” I said, forcing myself to continue. “You’re going to have to explain how you abducted Estefanía and Oihana Nájera.”

  “Who said anything about abduction? We didn’t abduct them. Fani told me her parents were going out to dinner and that she had to stay in and look after Oihana. I arranged to meet her in the empty apartment on Calle Cuchi.”

  “That explains why she had no registered calls and why there’s no CCTV footage of you outside her building,” I said.

  “Exactly, words die on the wind and leave no trace. I went back to basics, something I learned from all my hours in the studio. There’s no technology there, and it’s less messy.”

  “And how did you get into the apartment on Calle Cuchi?”

  “The building was being renovated, and the door had been left open. Me and my cuadrilla discovered it one night. We had been out partying, and we took a break and sat on the stoop. Most of the apartments weren’t finished, but it looked like the work had stopped. We started to meet up there to smoke and drink. Fani came with us a few times.”

  “So you didn’t abduct them.”

  Nobody had dragged the two sisters over the rooftops.

  “No, I just called out to her, and she snuck into the apartment through the back.”

  “The back?”

  “The interior courtyard. She always came in that way. It was August, the neighbors weren’t awake at that time of night, and it was dark. I knew she’d leave her bedroom window open to get back into her house. When she and her sister got to the apartment, Sebas dealt with Fani and I subdued Oihana. We put them in the bags we’d brought from Ugarte, and Sebas finished bricking up the wall. We cut Oihana’s arm and collected some blood so we could plant it in their house and draw attention away from the apartment. We were worried about how close the two houses were, afraid the police might find them alive. Then we climbed through the window into Fani’s apartment, smeared the blood on the floor, climbed out again, and closed the sliding window from the outside. We wiped our fingerprints off the glass. That was our first task and it went well.

  “We each picked the crime we were best suited to carry out. We figured if there was more than one perpetrator, it would confuse the police. They’d focus their attention on the author of the novel, and that was our plan: to frame Ramiro Alvar. There were lots of crimes to choose from in Lords of Time. Sebas and I opted to re-create the immurement of the two sisters. He’s the kind of person who does what he’s told, and he doesn’t ask too many questions. Beltrán chose the poisoning. Lacing a canapé with Spanish fly was simple. He didn’t care which entrepreneur died; he hated them all.”

  “And you carried out the murders in the same order as they appear in the novel.”

  “Yes. We ruled out the complicated ones. In fact, we would have stopped after Lasaga, but then MatuSalem confided in his girlfriend. She told me, and I told Gonzalo. I said he had to stop Matu before he could speak to you. But he didn’t want to get his hands dirty.”

  Like every good psychopath, Irati, I felt like saying to her. He manipulated all of you. He preyed on your frustrations, made you believe he shared them, and got you to do his dirty work.

  “Matu was a clever kid,” she continued. “Sebas was furious and wanted to put Matu in the barrel himself, but it was too risky because Matu knew us, so in the end, Gonzalo did it.”

  “You didn’t count on the fact that an ex-con uses a sharpened pencil as a weapon. Matu left me Gonzalo’s DNA.”

  “Actually, Gonzalo left you that clue. It’s true, Matu tried to stab him with his pencil, but he didn’t hit his target. Gonzalo left his own blood, knowing it would prove Ramiro Alvar’s guilt.”

  “And what about Claudia? You stole the keys to the tower from your sister so Gonzalo could take the chronicle, and before that you stole Magdalena Nograro’s habit. And you also stole the keys to the Quejana complex. But why? Why did you break into Quejana then, and why again a few weeks ago?”

  But Irati folded her arms, stared at the wall, and refused to reply.

  “You’re going to have to explain it to me, because I still can’t figure out why someone broke into Quejana a year and a half ago—”

  I fell silent then. I kept quiet because I had just remembered: A year and a half ago, when Gonzalo arrived in Ugarte.

  And then it struck me.

  Eighteen months.

  61

  ALTAI

  DIAGO VELA

  Winter, the Year of Our Lord 1200

  Seventeen days had passed since Alix and Onneca’s ill-fated return. The town had never been more divided, and if the Nova Victoria residents had been strong enough they would have attacked those in Villa de Suso. They wanted to surrender unconditionally, while Villa de Suso would have rather died waiting for King Sancho’s army to save them.

  Chipia had stopped scanning the horizon from the battlements and had even given his men leave to play a board game, alquerque, when months earlier he would have punished them for the infraction with several nights in the cells.

  There were no more animals in our yards: no pigs, no hens, not even rabbits. Walking through the cobbled streets felt like walking through a graveyard. The squawks, clucks, and whinnies had given way to a heavy silence.

  Only my daughter and Grandmother Lucía compensated for the loss of Alix. My insides churned with grief at her passing, and at the thought that, after all she’d been through on that arduous journey, she wouldn’t see the end of the siege. And still the siege showed no sign of ending.

  I took my daughter with me to visit Grandmother Lucía. Lately she was barely more than skin and bones, despite the fact that all the townspeople, from Sancha de Galarreta to Lorenço the shepherd, secretly brought her some of their rations.

  As I entered the yard, I whistled to alert her to my presence. I couldn’t even bring her a leather belt to chew on—something we all did for the scant nourishment it provided—because there were no teeth left in her mouth. Instead, I brought strips of the vellum I was using to write this chronicle. I intended to boil the vellum and make a fortifying broth.

  But as soon as I entered her chamber, I knew.

  She was gone.

  Grandmother Lucía’s presence no longer filled the room, all that remained inside those bleak walls was cold air.

  I found her sitting on the floor, arms draped around an open chest.

  She had left us a gift: cured pork, cheese, chestnuts…All the food we’d brought her over these last few months, which she knew we wouldn’t take back. She had saved it all for us: her children, her grandchildren, her great-grandchildren, and her great-great-grandchildren.

  I sat beside her, my sleeping daughter in my arms, and permitted myself to weep.

  I wept for her, for Alix, for Yennego, for all the people I’d left behind.

  I was failing in my duty as a father. I was choosing to let the world cut my child in half rather than entrust her to strangers.

  But Gunnarr’s cry roused me from my stupor.

  I could hear his voice booming from the street below. He sounded especially agitated.

  “What is it, Cousin?” I asked, leaning out the window. I was still clutching my daughter.

  “It’s Nagorno, you must come immediately! He’s threatening to set fire to the town. He’s out of his mind,” Gunnarr exclaimed.

  “Nagorno, out of his mind?” I repeated incredulously.

  I hurried downstairs and followed G
unnarr to the stable yard at my brother’s house.

  I found Nagorno lying on the last of the remaining straw. Our sister, Lyra, was holding him down as best she could, the tip of her dagger pressed to his neck.

  “What’s going on? What is this nonsense?” I demanded, taking in the pitiful scene.

  “Some people broke into the stables last night. They’ve eaten Altai,” Lyra explained. “He and Olbia were the only animals left in the town. They must have known Nagorno would exact a bloody revenge, but maybe they decided they’d rather gorge themselves and then wait for our brother to finish them quickly than wait out this siege. You talk some sense into him; he won’t listen to me.”

  “Let go of him,” I told her.

  “I will not.”

  “Let go of him, Sister. I’ll deal with this,” I repeated.

  Lyra frowned at me but gave in.

  Nagorno leaped to his feet. His eyes normally resembled a dark tunnel, but they seemed even more dead than usual.

  “Grandmother Lucía is dead. We’re going to surrender the town. This no longer makes any sense,” I announced simply, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Come, Brother, I want you to be in charge of organizing her funeral. Talk to the people of Nova Victoria. Lyra, summon everyone from Villa de Suso. Ring the death knell and we’ll gather at Sant Viçente Cemetery the way we always have, ever since this hill was called Gasteiz.”

  And what neither hunger nor the town walls could unite, Grandmother Lucía brought together. There were no candles lighting the streets, and Milia the layer-out did not display bread offerings, for there was no Milia and there was no bread. Nor were there any hired mourners left to grieve for her.

  But what need had we of hired mourners when grief was inside each of us? We thought Grandmother Lucía was immortal. She had always been part of Villa de Suso, there in her little house watching life go by as she plaited her red bracelets for us.

  The hundred or so survivors formed a circle around her shroud. Nagorno brought out her chest with all the food she’d saved for us. We sat on the tombstones and shared it: Mendozas with rope makers, Isunzas with fruit sellers, the finest feast we could remember in ages.

  “Are we all agreed, then?” I asked after we’d finished every last morsel.

  They nodded in unison.

  “Every one of you?” I insisted.

  “Every one of us,” they cried.

  62

  THE CHANCELLOR’S TOMB

  UNAI

  November 2019

  As I sprinted to my office, I bumped into Alba in the hallway. I looked to the left and to the right and couldn’t see anyone. I was euphoric.

  “Come here,” I said, pulling her in and giving her a quick kiss.

  “What’s that for?” she asked, grinning.

  “I need to check a couple of things, then I’ll tell you,” I said.

  I closed my office door behind me. I was elated—it was the same feeling that had kept me hooked on my job for so many years. I picked up my cell phone and dialed the forensic pathologist’s number.

  “Doctor Guevara, I think I know who the remains from Quejana belong to. I want you to see if they match the following DNA sample.”

  I explained my theory to her, and she wrote it down.

  “I have some important news for you, too. I think you should be sitting down,” she said. “It came as a complete surprise, and I asked the lab to run the tests again just to be sure.”

  “What’s this all about? You’re making me nervous,” I said, sitting down and preparing for bad news.

  “It’s about the other two bodies found in Chancellor Ayala’s tomb. As you know, we routinely check all our DNA results against the DNA of those working on the case in order to rule out false positives from cross-contamination. It turns out the man and the woman in the tomb are your ancestors, although they aren’t related to each other. We’ve been in touch with the diocese and it’s safe to assume that the remains are those of Chancellor Don Pero López de Ayala and his wife, Leonor de Guzmán. They were placed in that tomb in 1407 at the chancellor’s behest.”

  “And yet that part of the family supposedly died out centuries ago. None of the present-day López Ayalas are descended from them,” I struggled to respond.

  “Well, we’ve just proved that this branch of your family tree survived.”

  I had a thousand-and-one questions to ask her, but I didn’t know where to start. Just then Alba flung the door open so fiercely, it ricocheted against the wall.

  “Unai, it’s your grandfather….We have to go to the hospital.”

  I saw her face and leaped out of my chair. I forgot to grab my coat, and I even forgot to take off my badge. She got behind the wheel—I was in no state to drive.

  Germán had called to give us the news. He was watching Deba when the hospital told him.

  * * *

  —

  The hospital elevator was the slowest, most exasperating I’d ever been in. I sprinted down the corridor and burst into his room.

  “What’s new, my boy? You look frightened,” Grandfather said with a smile.

  “How on Earth…?” I shot Germán a quizzical look. I felt a knot in my throat and found I couldn’t finish my sentence. For a moment I was afraid my Broca’s aphasia had come back.

  “The nurses told me he just opened his eyes and asked them if they were crows come to pick over his bones,” Germán replied.

  Grandfather just kept smiling, as if he didn’t know what all the fuss was about. He playfully placed his beret on Deba’s head.

  Alba squeezed my hand tightly. I knew she wished her mother could share this miracle with us.

  But she couldn’t. Nieves was dead, and there was nothing I could do to bring her back.

  I looked down at my cell phone. My screensaver was the photograph we had taken at the book launch in Villa Suso. We were all smiling: Grandfather, Nieves, Alba, Deba, and me.

  Dazed, I sat on the sofa, the same place I’d spent hours watching Grandfather and praying for the impossible.

  And I made a decision—or perhaps the decision had already been made and was simply waiting to be put into words.

  “I brought all four of you a present,” I said, rising to my feet. “Here, this is no longer mine. You’ve earned it.”

  I placed my badge next to Grandfather on the bed.

  He picked it up happily and hung it around his neck.

  “It’s about time, son,” he said with a shrug.

  Alba looked at me, and for the first time, I felt as though we were on the same path. I’d taken a different route to get there, but she’d had the wisdom to wait for me.

  Germán’s chin began to quiver as he launched himself at me. I stooped to return his embrace.

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you…” he whispered between sobs.

  Then everybody, including Deba, gathered around me and enfolded me in their arms.

  “Why are we crying, Mama?” my daughter asked after a while.

  “Because your father’s chosen us,” Germán whispered to her.

  63

  KRAKEN

  UNAI

  November 2019

  And so, little by little, life returned to normal, with Grandfather back among us. One morning, I went into the barber’s shop where I had been getting my hair cut since I was a teenager. There was something I needed to get rid of.

  “Short. Very short. The way I used to wear it,” I told the owner.

  “You don’t mind your scar showing?”

  “No, not anymore.”

  It was time to embrace my scars.

  And as the clumps of hair fell to the floor, I let go of Kraken, of the impossible burden I had shouldered. I let go of my self-destructive sense of duty that had caused so much loss. I was a serial killer, too, in my own way. Th
e lie I told myself—I am the only person who can keep the city safe—had killed or endangered the lives of so many people I loved that I deserved a life sentence. Without parole.

  I left the barber’s feeling new, strange.

  And that hopeful feeling was nice.

  I was walking through the Carnicerías district, heading toward la Torre de Doña Otxanda, when I thought I spotted a familiar bald head.

  “Lutxo?” I called.

  He wheeled around and looked surprised to see me.

  “What are you doing here at this time of day? Aren’t you working?” he asked, puzzled.

  “I want to organize a dinner with the cuadrilla on Friday. You’ll come, won’t you?”

  “You haven’t answered my question. Why aren’t you at work?” he insisted.

  “I can’t wait to see all of you. We haven’t met up in forever. It’s going to be a celebratory dinner. What do you say?”

  “I say there’s nobody like you when it comes to being evasive. Will you please tell me why you’re not at your office?”

  “I’ve been telling you from the beginning, Lutxo. On Friday I want to have dinner with the cuadrilla to celebrate leaving my job with the Criminal Investigation Unit. Feel free to write about it, if you want. In fact, you’d be doing me a huge favor. ‘Kraken Retires.’ You can say it’s for personal or professional reasons, whichever you want.”

  “And what are you going to do now?”

  “I’m joining the coach’s bench: I’m going to train profilers. I won’t be working on any fresh cases. There’s another headline for you.”

  It took Lutxo a minute to digest the news. Then he stroked his goatee and smiled.

  “Well…I’m glad to hear it. Really glad. Honestly. We can pick up our Sunday hikes in the mountains again without the constant tension between us.”